Lesley Hines wrote:I certainly agree that the military budget is horribly wasteful and far, far too large, but I think we do need some sort of military force.
I was being a bit flippant in saying sack them all, but honestly I think we could make pretty deep cuts without losing too much. Maybe "Austerity Britain" could actually stay out of some wars for a bit, and having a smaller military would encourage that on several fronts (ha ha).
PS Which country was it that has disbanded their military completely and spent the money on schools and healthcare? I'd like to see how that turned out for them, although our situation is probably a bit different to theirs.
The forces do actually do quite a lot of useful work that doesn't necessarily make the papers, like capturing drug-runners
To repeat the above: legalise drugs and tax them. I realise this is more like making money than saving it, but presumably the aphorism can be reversed so a penny earned is a penny saved.
With the hospitals, I think PFIs are an awful idea.
Agreed. Have you been following the Private Eye coverage of this? It's basically a balance sheet trick which will eventually catch up with us.
Come to that, what about AV? Sounds incredibly expensive to implement to me, and considering I wouldn't trust most people to understand the policies they're actually voting for is then allowing them to rank them a good idea? Won't it just massively increase the number of invalid votes (and if they're too thick to fill in a polling form is that a bad idea?). I thought they were supposed to be saving money, rather than spending a small fortune on referendums and stuff that can probably wait a few years, since it's waited this long.
Even the opponents of AV estimate that the switch would cost about £250M, which is basically small change at a national level, especially since it's a one-time cost. One could also argue that, since it measurably improves the value of the consensus which elects the government, it would also improve spending efficiency of future governments, thereby paying for itself. But even if it didn't, if we're willing to spend £8B (and counting) to bring democracy to Iraq then surely we should be prepared to spend 3% of that on democratic fairness for ourselves. Whatever the arguments for and against AV, I don't think cost is a compelling one.